Empty seas with Gwx 3.0

[Freiwillige]

Is it just me? I sailed from Wilhelmshaven north to Scottland, up around the orkenys, around the backside of Ireland and down to grid Bf and came across only one vessal the whole trip. Are ships more scarce in GWX 3.0 or am I just unlucky?

[Faamecanic]

Yes ships are more scarce.... did you try activating the 16km mod through JGMSE? (startard viewig distance is 8km).

Also you will find more success (in early war) sticking near English coast and doing "listening" dives using the hydrophone yourself.

Also if you sailed at 1024 TC, then your chances of your watch crew spotting a ship go down significantly. Try cruising at no more than 512 in areas where there is known ship traffic.

SH3 stock was TOTALLY unrealistic with the amount of traffic and reports that would pop up on your map.

[Erich dem Roten]

Also make sure that you have not enabled "Indian Ocean Campaign Files Only" or "Black Sea Campaign Files Only" in your mods. Either of those will create an empty Atlantic.

[Task Force]

Where where you at? Try the east cost of England. There probably wouldn't be too many ships there in early war.

There's just as much traffic in 3.0 as in 2.1
maybe a bit more?

[FIREWALL]

When MFM is released things could pick up a bit.

[Iron Budokan]

I'm finding lots of contacts in 3.0. Enough to keep me busy, anyway. But I tend to run at a lower time compression than most people (or so I would suspect) and I dive a lot and listen a lot.

Definitely enable the 16k mod if your rig can handle it. Make sure you work the choke points and heavy traffic areas, too. Good hunting!

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

I'm finding lots of contacts in 3.0. Enough to keep me busy, anyway. But I tend to run at a lower time compression than most people (or so I would suspect) and I dive a lot and listen a lot.

Definitely enable the 16k mod if your rig can handle it. Make sure you work the choke points and heavy traffic areas, too. Good hunting!

I'm the same way. 256 tops. Very good advice.

[Freiwillige]

Well it is november of 1939. I just remember in GWX 2.1 alot more small ships and I took my usuall deck gun madness route along the eastern edge of England about 75 km off shore and their were a few "5 or less" contects within 100 Kilometers but not what it used to be. I remember "Ship sighted" about ten times before I even got to Scottland with a few being neutrals.

How much hit is it for the 16Km mod? My system is already a bit below specs but for the extra, extra long loading times (roughly 5 minutes) all else seems okay and stutter free

AMD Sempron 2.8 (Basically an atholon 64 with less L2 cache)
Geforce 7300GT AGP with 512 megs of ddr on card
756 megs of ddr memory on the system (Ouch I know, 2 gigs coming soon!)
80 gig WD ATA hard drive

So do ya think it will handle the extended horizon?:hmm:

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Freiwillige

Is it just me? I sailed from Wilhelmshaven north to Scottland, up around the orkenys, around the backside of Ireland and down to grid Bf and came across only one vessal the whole trip. Are ships more scarce in GWX 3.0 or am I just unlucky?

Are you running submerged & using hydrophones? I find that's a major help. If you are submerged much of the time, what speed are you running at?

[A Very Super Market]

Your system is better than mine, apart from RAM, but its mostly the graphics card that makes a difference. 16km should be fine for you.

[Phantom II]

Little traffic? I'm on patrol 6 at the moment in my career with GWX 3.0 and I've already sunk the HMS Hood and the HMS Nelson(<-twice), along with a whole bunch of tankers, cargo ships, trawlers and a British Submarine all for a total of 250,000 tonnes (100,000 of which came from a single patrol). THAT is what I would call a bit unrealistic. On my way back to port from my last patrol, I even spotted a huge Battleship taskforce (had a ship which looked like the Nelson, except with camo, one which looked like King George, and a third one which I couldn't identify, all surrounded by no less than 10 destroyers), unfortunately I only had one rear torpedo remaining, so I didn't bother.

[Dekessey]

Originally Posted by Phantom II

On my way back to port from my last patrol, I even spotted a huge Battleship taskforce (had a ship which looked like the Nelson, except with camo, one which looked like King George, and a third one which I couldn't identify, all surrounded by no less than 10 destroyers), unfortunately I only had one rear torpedo remaining, so I didn't bother.

Chicken!

[Steeltrap]

A few points, most of them already covered to varying degrees:

TC: I never hunt at more than 128x. If I'm in transit through an area with a reasonable chance of contact, or aircraft, I do so at no more than 256x.

Unless the visibility is unrestricted, I spend a lot of time submerged if hunting. If you set your speed manually to 1knt you can stay under until you reach 50% on the O2 guage without depleting your battery to any extent. Throw in some course changes of 60 degrees here and there to avoid a fixed blindspot arc in your hunt area. With half decent crew member on hydrophone, nothing much will get past you. It also removes the issue of aircraft for much of your hunting.

The other benefit to this is you use very little in the way of fuel - people posting that they struggle with fuel on a 'normal' patrol simply must be burning it up running around with to no real purpose. My rule is this: if I've nowhere to go, I run at low speed if on the surface. You can easily spend 12-18hrs submerged at 1knt and then recharge the battery in a matter of hours. Even if you don't recharge, you'll still have 90%+ of capacity after such a period submerged. The only thing that drives me to the surface is O2.

IF the system allowed you to spot smoke on horizon, etc, then there would be more reaon for being on the surface (fact is the smoke from a convoy could be seen well over the horizon vs. the ships themselves).

Cheers

[Freiwillige]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Are you running submerged & using hydrophones? I find that's a major help. If you are submerged much of the time, what speed are you running at?

Nope surface unless looking for a specific target known to be in the area I stay up top. After all it is early in the war. Should I dive and do hydraphone checks? If so how often?